Stephan Szyman wrote: >I went over to my grandparents' to demonstrate a prediction for iridium 90 >on 21 sept at 00:40:00 UTC. >HA predicted a flare of mag -7 for iridium 90 just near polaris. >it was the first time I have gone out to view a significantly bright iridium >flare as predicted by HA only be disappointed. at its peak it reached >perhaps mag -1.5. >any ideas as to why this may have occured? Iridium 90 is 100 km below the operational Iridium orbits. I guess it acts as a spare. Therefore its attitude does not have to be as tightly controlled as those of the operational Iridium sats. A small change in attitude can lead to a significant change in flare magnitude. Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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